Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1 August 1744-18 December 1829) was a French naturalist who was an early proponent of biological evolution. His theory that animals can inherit acquired (soft) characteristics, later proven wrong by Charles Darwin, was known as "Lamarckism".

Biography
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was born in Bazentin, Picardy, France in 1744, and he served in the French Army during the Seven Years' War. While posted to Monaco, he studied natural history and medicine, and he retired from the army after being badly injured in 1766. In 1778, he published a three-volume work on botany, and he joined the French Academy of Sciences a year later. In 1793, he became a zoology professor following the creation of the National Museum of Natural History, and he published a major work on the classification of invertebrates in 1801 and coined the term biology in 1802. In 1809, he described his theory on the inheritance of acquired characteristics, which became known as "Lamarckism". His views were later proven wrong by Charles Darwin, and he died in 1829.